“Now we should be off the buoy, Mate, but I don’t see it! Good God, what are we going to do! It will be fatal—it is impossible to navigate without picking it up. And besides, the destroyer which is lurking behind that confounded rainwall and which at any minute can come up alongside us!”
The buoy did not appear.
Then the weather began to clear up. The rain thinned and the fog lifted a little.
First we saw land. Thereafter we saw the destroyer at quite a distance on the port side, laying a course towards us, and then—then——
All good spirits have mercy on us!
The buoy—our buoy—was to the wrong side.
And we? Great God in Heaven—we were going on the wrong course! We were running right for the sandbank. We must already be right on top of them. Disastrously for us, it has cleared too late.
“Hard a-starboard! Reverse both engines full speed!” There was nothing more to do. Then came the disaster! A jar and a whirring—U-boat 202 had gone aground.